The second I hear the facile ideas of our elected officials to bring in the Army to start cracking down on “crime” I get visions of jack-booted legions of the Wehrmacht goosestepping through the city, machine guns at hand, knocking over old people and making little kids cry.

But, I guess Representative John “Twitchy” Fritchey is wholly unaware about the rules and philosophies of the American system. You see comrade Fritchey, there is a reason why the Commissars aren’t allowed to bring the Army down upon a city. It’s because our U.S. armed forces are supposed to protect us against foreign enemies. Our laws and police agencies are supposed to protect us from internal crooks, criminals and thugs. And if our police are failing, “Twitchey” Fritchey, it is your fault (yours and your fellow “lawmakers”) Not the police’s.

Further it is not the job of the Army to harass citizens into cowering inside their homes for fear of being cut down in the streets by or own soldiers.Read more

#1). The other day I was piqued at the Republican Governors Association over its muff up of the distribution of it excellent video for the November elections. I am happy to report that my concerns were immediately addressed and corrective action was taken on the spot. That is a win.

#2). Of course, the video itself is also a win. The thing is well made and hits the right notes serving to keep the faithful energized and perhaps bringing new eyes to the choices confronting us in 2010.

#3). And after the release of the great video and the quick response to a problem in distribution of that video, the RGA has some hilarious followup to the results of that video. Here is that info in an email I received today:

Who would have thought that pawn broker Scott Lee Cohen, the deposed Democrat Lt. Governor candidate, would have turned out to be a more competent lender than former Democrat golden boy Ali G?

I guess Cohen should have played basketball with the President.

The “Ali G” I refer to is Alexi Giannoulias. The nickname is ripped from the fictional interviewer created by comedian Sacha Baron Cohen. Giannoulias’ comedic campaign for the U.S. Senate would normally be the stuff of fiction but this is Illinois.Read more

(Grayslake, Illinois) – 8th District Republican Congressional Nominee Joe Walsh today promised that, if elected, he would introduce legislation to tie the salaries of members of Congress to the median household income level in the United States.

Rank-and-file members of Congress make $174,000 annually. According to the Census Bureau, the median household income in the U.S. is $50,233 (2007).Read more

Not long ago, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andy Stern abruptly resigned from his powerful position and we still aren’t sure why. But as he headed for the exit, Stern recommended his long-time confidante and current SEIU Secretary-Treasurer, Anna Burger, to be his replacement. But shockingly it is beginning to look as if Stern’s druthers will not win the day.

Andy Stern has been one of the most powerful union leaders in America for a long time. Along with Burger, Stern was one of the most frequent visitors to Barack Obama’s White House, he’s spent years gobbling up smaller unions and placing them under the thumb of the SEIU with the result that his union has grown exponentially, and he’s succeeded in insinuating his union into the bowels of just about every state and local government office in the country. He’s wielded the power of multi-million dollar political campaign donation funds and has been involved at the highest level in U.S. labor policy. He was even named to Barack Obama’s Deficit Reduction Commission tasked with finding out ways to restructure federal budgeting.

I have my suspicions as to why he’s so suddenly stepped down (I spoke about those suspicions here) but what is beyond doubt is that Andy Stern has held in his hands an awful lot of power as the head of the SEIU. So it is a bit shocking to learn that his handpicked replacement might not be the shoo-in that might otherwise have been imagined.Read more

Until recently, Andy Stern was the President of the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), a union that has served as one of President Obama’s biggest donors as well as filling the ranks of his ground troops. In a surprise move, Stern resigned his post this month and no one is really sure why at this point.

Andy Stern has been one of the closest union chiefs to a president in history. Along with SEIU treasurer Anna Burger, he was one of the most frequent visitors to the White House. He was even chosen by President Obama to serve on his Deficit Reduction Commission — a sort of contradiction in terms that.

Upon his resignation, it has been learned that Andy Stern’s leadership of the SEIU has not brought financial solvency. As F. Vincent Vernuccio reports in the Washington Times, Stern has left the SEIU in pretty shabby shape.Read more

Rush Limbaugh and a few other radio hosts have made it a center piece of the attack against President Obama, the Tea Partiers have often put such sentiment on their protest signs, and the conservative chattering classes have been abuzz with the question: does Barack Obama want to destroy the United States?

The only real answer is “yes, but…” Yes he does, but only if it’s your ox being gored. Yes he does but there is more to it than that. And if it’s someone else’s veritable Oxen the answer might still be “yes, but…”

Conservative radio host Michael Medved, for one, emphatically denies that Obama wants to “destroy the country.” Medved employs the conventional logic that a politician that wants to be re-elected would not want to destroy the very nation that he has been elected to lead. That would make sense if only Obama were a conventional politician and if only Obama himself hadn’t told ABC News, “I’d rather be a really good one-term president than a mediocre two-term president.” That very sentence straight from this president’s own mouth seems to shoot full of holes Medved’s conventional logic.

Still, in a way, Medved has stumbled upon a certain amount of truth no matter how small. The problem is that what we really have here is a misunderstanding of concepts. The fact is, following his straight down the line, left-wing, anti-American, radical ideology, Obama does want to destroy the U.S.A. as it is now. But in his mind he is not trying to destroy America simply because he wants utter destruction and devastation to be the only outcome. You see, mere destruction isn’t his end goal as those on the right fear. In his left-wing ideology, he thinks after America’s fall he and his left-wing comrades will be building a new and better U.S.A. Where real Americans see destruction and the end of everything, the leftists see a re-birth to a better and, in their eyes, more moral America. He and his left-wing friends see the U.S. as a Phoenix rising from the ashes of the bad old days.Read more

We conservatives are fond of wanting to oust everyone in office and for wanting to “vote the scoundrels out.” But, I’d like to add one more level to the throw-them-out-of-government arena. Let’s fire every government worker from the smallest village receptionist or sewer worker to the staffers of the highest Senator and every menial clerk and recalcitrant paper shuffler in between. O.K., this is a little bombast, but only a little.

It’s not just pique at the famous laziness of government workers I indulge here and it’s not just the fact that the only reason they got their jobs is because they are pals with one politician or another. It’s not just that they are better paid than just about any real American in the private sector — whether they deserve it or not — and it’s not because they are impossible to fire, nor is it because they get a better pension and health care than anyone who really contributes to society… well, OK, it is because of that stuff. All that stuff and more.Read more

We have just learned from seasonably reliable sources of certain alleged reference material pending submission to Wikipedia concerning the newly discovered etymological distinction of the word, ‘Regime.’ The reference material was unearthed by John Podesta’s Center for American Progress. Clarion Advisory is pleased to be able to provide you with the following potential communication:

From The Desk of John . . . ‘Progress Ahead of our Time’

19 April 2010
To: Wikipedia
Re: New historical definition of ‘Regime’

Dear Jimmy,

It has been some time since our last communication. If I recall correctly, we last corresponded during President Clinton’s term concerning President Clinton’s recommendations for the word, ‘IS’ and how the word, ‘IS’ could be contextually adapted under numerous circumstances inside the legal realm to mean what the sayer post – facto would like it to mean relative to pending and potentially pending legal cases and affirmative defense strategies. Again, thanks for updating the page on what the meaning of ‘IS . . . IS.’Read more

Paul’s epistle to the Romans is historically the early church’s firmest single doctrinal statement of Christian faith.

Pastor Dan Gardner (Assembly of God Church, Cohocton, New York) opened a series of sermons exploring the Apostle Paul’s letter to the church in Rome. The epistle was written approximately 27 years after the crucifixion of Jesus Christ, while elements of Jesus’s life and teaching were still fresh in the minds of those who lived around him and were eye witnesses to his ministry on earth.

Well it is beginning to look like Cohen really is looking to run for governor as an independent. Now a spokesman for Michael Madigan is saying that Cohen told the party bigwigs that he does, indeed, want to run for governor as a lt.

This would be awful fun if it came to pass. But I warn everyone about Cohen. He seems awfully flakey. Don’t be surprised if Cohen flakes out and decides he “never said he’d run.”

For the Washington Post’s Post Partisan Blog Charles Lane’s somewhat irreverent, perhaps even dismissive treatment of the admittedly quixotic Senate campaign of journalist Mickey Kaus painted the would-be candidate as a union fighter. Interestingly, he isn’t far off the mark, which is odd for the fact that Kaus is a pretty straight down the line liberal.

Could Mickey Kaus be the “harbinger” of a new, mildly anti-union Democrat that might replace the sold out, in-the-back-pocket sort of Democrats we’ve seen for decades and decades?

I had the privilege and pleasure of spending four days as Ben Franklin in events connected with the Dayton Tea Party people, and their allies. Saturday I spoke at a special dinner for prime supporters and workers. Tuesday I spoke at the main rally in the Nutter Center. In between, I visited with nine different school classes in the Dayton area. Those are what I want to talk about today.

One of the events was a session with an after-school program at a church in Springfield, Ohio, for “at risk” kindergarten, first and second grade students. Another was a combination of two fifth-grade classes in a school that has won awards of excellence for nine years running.

In the latter, the students stood and recited the Preamble of the Constitution, with more or less accuracy in the precise words. They were the highest grade students I encountered, and also the most prepared. They had studied the Constitution and had studied Franklin’s life. I was very impressed by how much they knew and how good their questions were. But they aren’t the ones I came to talk about today.Read more

The Democrat’s Illinois Senate candidate, Alexi Giannoulias, has seen his family business stripped away from them and placed in the hands of a new owner (MB Financial) because he and his family could not come up with the $85 million needed to shore up falling liquidity.

Alexi Giannoulias was the bank’s chief lender and vice-president from 2002 to 2006. He has been criticized for working for the bank when it loaned $20 million to Michael “Jaws” Giorongo and reputed mobster Boris Stratievsky. Giannoulias’ family has also been attacked for taking $70 million in dividends in both 2007 and 2008 as the bank’s loans were going bad.Read more

Earlier this afternoon, Mike Parker long-time reporter from CBS 2 News, Chicago, gave me a ring and asked me to make a quick trip downtown Chicago — well, “quick” being relative with Chicago traffic at rush hour — to appear with him in a piece on the recent announcement by the good folks at Archie Comics that they intended to add an openly gay character to their Archie comic book series.

It was a bit unusual for me. Not to be on TV, but to have TV call me about an item I hadn’t yet written about. I saw this story this morning but thought I’d put off writing about it until later tonight or Saturday. Now, usually I get everyone mad at me after I’ve written about something, but it looks like Mr. Parker wanted to initiate a preemptive strike with this one! Ha, ha.

Anyway, Mr. Parker was quite correct that I had a thing or two to say about the matter and I hope that I was able to effectively convey those ideas in the interview that will appear tonight during the 10 O’Clock news on Channel 2.

What struck me about this Archie announcement is that it seems we’re about to lose yet another safe haven for kid’s entertainment. Introducing a gay character may be “realistic” but does Archie have to be realistic? Kid’s entertainment doesn’t have to “reflect the current world of Teens.” It doesn’t have to present harsh realities or controversy. It can just be about fun or fantasy and it doesn’t have to delve into every aspect of life whether it be provocative, even deviate. Will the Archies have a skinhead character? Will they have a Holocaust denier character? Or how about on the other end of the spectrum and putting in a strict Christian character? Will Archie get one of those? Likely not as it doesn’t fit the liberal agenda.Read more

I am just abut to leave to head downtown Chicago to do an interview with Channel 2’s Mike Parker over this issue of Archie comics introducing a gay character in its comics. If I make the cut it’ll be on the nightly news.

My friend Gary Karlin over at the Evanston Conservative blog has spent the last year or so collecting a series of stories detailing the costs of illegal aliens to the United States.

With just the 14 news stories he highlights, the cost rings in at a staggering $338.3 Billion in money wasted by government giving freebies to illegal aliens as well as in law enforcement costs.

Free schools, free medial care, free Medicaid, free food, free social services, it’s a veritable cornucopia of freebies streaming out of our various government’s coffers to these people who broke our laws to get here and are breaking our laws to stay.Read more

American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees chief Henry Bayer addressed a rally of Illinois unions members on April 21. During his harangue this man revealed the exact sort of logical disconnect in which union thugs everywhere wallow.

Bayer noted that 10% of the workforce in Illinois is out of work. OK, then what was his prescription to solve this situation? More taxes! How even higher taxes on the few lucky enough to have a job could help enlarge the workforce is the $64,000 question. The answer, of course, is that it can’t.

Catch this complete lack of common sense and logic in Bayer’s spittle specked rant…

“… so they (the legislature) can’t do their job, ‘you know we can’t raise taxes because people are hurting.’ And they are absoroo…lutely right. People are hurting. But let me ask you this: if we raise revenue for senior programs will it hurt the elderly? If we raise revenue for childcare will it hurt working families? If we raise revenue for community colleges and universities will it hurt students? If we raise revenue for programs for the disabled will it hurt will it hurt those individuals who get those services? If we raise revenue for public safety will it hurt our communities? If we raise money for schools will it hurt our kids? Yes people are hurting that’s why we need a tax increase!”

If this isn’t the most stupid blather I’ve yet heard from a union tough, then I’ve never heard any. Where does this guy think all those taxes are coming from if not the very people he invokes? Does he think no one that he is interested in pays state taxes? The very people he mentioned are already losing their services because government has spent itself into a hole the size of the Grand Canyon!Read more

Universally, teachers unions cry for more money and insist on raising everyone’s taxes to get it. And in an era when government spending needs to be reined in, unions are dinosaurs in the modern age, outmoded and wasteful.

Kyle Olson of the Education Action Group, an education reform organization based in Michigan, spoke to the Lansing, Mich. tea party rally on April 15. He had a few warnings for the profligate spenders in teachers unions.

Frank Schaeffer often speaks of Christians who teach the rapture of the saints as an end time “cult.” He declared that that “cult” and the “Fox News fantasy take on Obama and the fact he is black” was simply too much heat applied to the weak minds of the Michigan militia and the pot boiled over. There again, is Frank reading minds and throwing out verbal hand grenades, slandering good Americans. No person of character would agree that the main opposition to Obama has anything to do with his race, after all, he is not black, he is multiracial.

Calling the Left Behind phenomena “American background noise,” Schaeffer wrote, “Less innocuous symptoms include people stocking up on assault rifles and ammunition, adopting ‘Christ-centered’ home school curricula, fearing higher education, embracing rumor as fact, and learning to love hatred for the ‘other,’ as exemplified by a revived anti-immigrant racism, the murder of doctors who do abortions, and even a killing in the Holocaust Museum. And now we have a cult/militia [in Michigan] dedicated to the same idea.” From that confused, contorted, and contrived statement, it is obvious that Frank is not a clear thinker. Notice again how he mixes the good guys and bad guys in order to take an unfair, untrue, and unreasonable swipe at the good guys. None of the abortion killers have turned out to be fundamental/evangelical, Bible practicing Christians. Furthermore, no informed, thinking person says that concern about our borders is racism. Frank has swallowed the loony left’s Kool-Aid.Read more

“Yes, despite the political insiders’ claims that government is bankrupt and their calls for tax increases — we’ve learned that the county taxpayers spent more than $75,000 on a local coffee company in the first three months of the current fiscal year alone. That adds up to some $300,000 a year for coffee and snacks!

As I told the reporter for that story, I’ve long said that we have “corruption on steroids” here in Cook County — but now we learn it might also be fueled by coffee!

Are these really the types of wasteful “projects” on which our hard-earned tax dollars should be spent?

As your commissioner, I will continue to fight to expose these instances of abuse, and to fight for sensible spending reform and tax relief.”

Did the President lie? Blago thinks so. Rod Blagojevich’s team asked the court to issue a rial subpoena to President Obama to get him to answer some key questions in Blagojevich’s trial. The ex-guv is accused of attempting to sell Obama’s vacant Senate seat.

The motion was made public but was supposed to have been heavily redacted. Unfortunately for the prosecution, the computer file released to the press was easily restored to an un-redacted state through simple computer features. So, here is the un-redacted subpoena:Read more

Institute Featured on “The Daily Show”
In case you missed it, John O’Hara, our vice president of external relations, appeared on Jon Stewart’s show to discuss the meaning of the nationwide tea parties and more. You can watch the full interview, which aired on Comedy Central, here.Read more

(Palatine, Illinois) – Since Melissa Bean voted yes on January 28, 2009 for the $787B stimulus bill the unemployment rate in Lake County continues to rise. While Bean spent the last year ignoring her constituents and the American people she continued down a path of the takeover of our healthcare industry while ignoring the jobs which are disappearing at an alarming rate in Lake County. Bean’s stance to support the Obama Administration’s failed policies is hurting businesses and individuals which live and work in Lake County.Read more

One week ago today, I had the honor of speaking at five tea parties throughout Illinois. Their message – government is out of control, spending has reached unsustainable levels and we’re Taxed Enough Already.Read more

Last weekend, Senate President John Cullerton (D) got himself in a bit of hot water… or rather his son got him in hot water. As we reported earlier, sonny boy got himself pulled over for drunk driving. That wasn’t the big problem, though. The big problem is that the junior sir drinksalot was driving a state owned SUV that is supposed to be used only for official state business. Yet here was the youngster flying around town, drunk twice past the legal limit, and driving a state owned vehicle.

So, have you had enough of a state government that allows drunken frat boys to use state owned vehicles to do their carousing in when the state is $12 billion in debt and climbing.Read more

An American original, Samuel Clemens aka “Mark Twain,” died 100 years ago yesterday. Twain, author of some of America’s most famous literary works (The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court) passed away on April 21, 1910.

Twain was a taciturn man given to pessimism and the morose, but his works are cherished as American classics that talked about America in raw terms revealing its sense of humor and love of life.

In any case, we pause to recognize the 100th anniversary of the great scribe’s passing. RIP Mark Twain. 11/30/1835 – 4/21/1910.

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-By Warner Todd Huston
The second I hear the facile ideas of our elected officials to bring in the Army to start cracking down on "crime" I get visions of jack-booted legions of the Wehrmacht goosestepping through the city